Last year in Bangladesh, in the village of Begati Chikerbath, I visited Shamsur Naheris, an energetic extensionist in a bright orange sari. She had organized an exchange visit so that local women can tell their stories about making money and changing their lives by the simple means of raising chickens.
A year and a half earlier, the village had hosted an FFS (farmer field school) on poultry, where the women learned to vaccinate their chickens and ducks with eye drops and to keep the hens in small coops. When the hen has a clutch of eggs, she sits on them in a nest, called a hazol, which the villagers make themselves, a technique they learned in the FFS. The hazol is a kind of earthen bowl with two small cups on one side for feed and water. Because the hazol is big and heavy, the hens are less likely to upset and spill their food. The hen sits on straw in the hazol and broods her eggs with water and food handy. The hazol and the hen are placed inside a small chicken coop.
More chicks live to maturity with this system, and when they are six weeks old, they can be let loose to find their own food, which lowers costs and saves space in the chicken coop. Then the hen can start another brood. This way she gets five or six broods in a year, over a useful life of some five years, until she ends up in the family cooking pot.
“How can you stand to eat your old friend?†one visitor asked, concerned that the women might have become too attached to the hens to eat them.
“It’s easy, we just soften the meat first with green papaya,†one of the chicken farmers explains.
While there may be little sentimentality attached to the birds, the women are all keen to raise them. Every house has a small chicken coop in the back yard and all of the little structures are filled with healthy birds.
In a meeting with visitors from other villages, five local women told how raising chickens has improved not just their income, but also their self-esteem. The audience was clearly moved. The visitors were farmers and their husbands, 25 couples from six local community-based, water management groups. Having the husbands attend was a touch of inspiration. It would ensure that the men would be convinced and would support their wives as they started small-scale commercial poultry.
Even a simple technical innovation, such as a chicken coop and an improved nest, may require some training and clever community organizing.
Acknowledgements
The extensionists mentioned in this paper were Community development facilitators (CDF) for the Blue Gold Project, which is financed by the government of the Netherlands to improve water management in Bangladesh.
A related video
Watch this video on Taking care of local chickens
Vea la versión en español a continuación
All over the tropics, from Lima to Lagos, from Mumbai to Manila, the big cities are overflowing with migrants. In some regions, like the Andes, parts of the countryside are emptying out, with whole villages boarded up.
The new neighborhoods ringing the cities are often described as crowded eyesores. Ana and I visited one recently, on the edge of Cochabamba, a city that has long been divided into a fashionable north side, hemmed in by mountains, and by a working-class south side. But in the past 10 years or so the south side has mushroomed out of the valley bottom, to grow over the hills south of town. At night the lights on the hills are a reminder of how much the city has changed.
In one of the newest of these poor neighborhoods, we met some of the 80 members of a women’s group, Nueva Semilla (New Seed). Migration has been intense after the mining industry crumbled in the 1980s, but even in the past 10 years people have continued to leave villages in the provinces of Cochabamba and in Northern PotosÃ, the poorest region of Bolivia, to seek a better life in the city.
Nueva Semilla is in a tough neighborhood where people have to look after themselves. Families live on small plots of land, where they slowly build their brick and cement houses with their own hands, in their limited free time, usually just Sundays and national holidays. The streets are unpaved and dusty, laid out on square grids (or in curves on some of the steeper slopes). The government has built schools and hospitals. There is electricity, but no running water. People buy water from tanker trucks for a dollar a barrel.
The women’s group started in 2014, when some of them were taking a catechism class. They were impressed with the garden in the churchyard and this set them thinking. They had all been farmers in the places they had come from; why not establish their own gardens in their new homes?
But the women were used to growing potatoes, maize and barley, not garden vegetables. Fortunately, an NGO, the Agroecology and Faith Association, helped them with seed and some training, and some fabric to make semi-shade to protect the young plants against the fierce sun.
Doña Betty, one of the leaders, showed us the plot with her house, a small square of rocky hillside with no soil. Doña Betty bought a truckload of loamy soil, which she mixes with leaf-litter she collects from beneath mesquite trees on the surrounding hills. She puts the mixture in old tires, and irrigates with water she buys. She has created a delightful garden, with a dozen different vegetables, including healthy, organic tomatoes and celery which she is growing for seed to share with the members of her group.
A neighbor, doña Ernestina, is also in the group, and she has a lush garden of about 10 by 10 meters. She has a small hydroponic garden of PVC tubes filled with thriving lettuce plants, an investment paid for by the local municipality. Agroecology and Faith has a strong organic ethos and frowns on the hydroponic gardens because they rely on mineral fertilizer. Yet the NGO is also flexible enough to tolerate the hydroponic gardens, which the women seem to genuinely like. The women’s group is also independent and free to make links with more than one institution.
We paid a small fee, along with a small group of other visitors, for lunch which the women made. They were eager to sell their vegetables. Four heads of lettuce went for about 65-dollar cents, cheaper than in the market. The families eat a lot of their own produce and the kids we saw appeared healthy and well-fed. The women’s small vegetable gardens are surprisingly productive, even if they have to make their own soil and buy their water. The families even have surplus produce to sell.
The NGO is planning a seed exchange fair to … Once a month they also have a solidarity fair, where the women sell ‘solidarity’ baskets of vegetables they produce themselves.
The women and their families have left their farms behind, but they have also brought the best of country values with them: hard-work and creativity. These adaptive people have taken their personal development into their own hands, and have decided that a home garden is one of the tickets out of poverty.
Related blog stories
Agroecology and Faith’s solidarity baskets are modeled on an experience in Ecuador, which (as luck would have it) I have reported on in a previous blog: Donating food with style
For a story on hydroponic gardening: No land, no water, no problem
Related videos
For videos on seed fairs, and farmers’ rights to seed, see:
Farmers’ rights to seed – Guatemala
Farmers’ rights to seed – Malawi
UN MEJOR FUTURO CON JARDINES
Por Jeff Bentley
26 de mayo del 2019
Por todo el trópico, desde Lima hasta Lagos, desde Mumbai hasta Manila, las grandes ciudades están repletas de migrantes. En algunas regiones, como los Andes, partes del campo se están vaciando, con aldeas enteras tapiadas.
Los nuevos barrios que rodean las ciudades se describen a menudo como “cinturones de miseriaâ€. Hace poco, Ana y yo visitamos a una, en las afueras de Cochabamba, una ciudad que ha estado dividida por mucho tiempo en un lado norte de moda, rodeada de montañas, y por un lado sur de la clase trabajadora. Pero en los últimos 10 años, más o menos, el lado sur ha salido del piso del valle, para crecer sobre los cerros al sur de la ciudad. Por la noche, las luces de las colinas son un recordatorio de lo mucho que ha cambiado la ciudad.
En uno de los más nuevos de estos barrios pobres, conocimos a algunas de los 80 miembros de un grupo de mujeres, llamado Nueva Semilla. Ellas han migrado de las provincias de Cochabamba y del norte de PotosÃ, la región más pobre de Bolivia. La minerÃa colapsó en los años 1980, pero la gente sigue llegando para buscar una vida mejor en la ciudad.
Nueva Semilla está en un barrio duro de gente habilosa. Las familias viven en pequeñas parcelas de tierra, donde lentamente construyen sus casas de ladrillo y cemento con sus propias manos, los domingos y feriados. Las calles están sin pavimentar y polvorientas, pero dispuestas en cuadrÃculas (o en curvas en algunas de las pendientes más empinadas). El gobierno ha construido escuelas y hospitales. Hay electricidad, pero no hay agua corriente. La gente compra agua de camiones cisternas por 8 Bs. el turril de 200 litros.
El grupo de mujeres comenzó en 2014, cuando algunas de ellas estaban tomando una clase de catecismo. Quedaron impresionados con el jardÃn de la iglesia y se pusieron a pensar. Ellas habÃan sido agricultoras en sus lugares de origen ¿por qué no establecer huertos familiares en su nuevo lugar?
Pero ellas estaban acostumbradas a cultivar papas, maÃz y cebada, no hortalizas. Afortunadamente, una ONG, la Asociación de AgroecologÃa y Fe, les ayudó con semillas y algo de capacitación, y algunas telas para hacer semisombra para proteger las plantitas contra el feroz sol.
Doña Betty, una de las lÃderes, nos mostró su casa, en un pequeño lote de ladera rocosa sin suelo. Doña Betty compró una camionada de lama, que mezcla con las hojarascas que recoge debajo de los árboles de algarrobo (thaqo) en las colinas circundantes. Ella pone esta mezcla en llantas viejas, y riega con agua que ella compra. Ella ha creado un jardÃn encantador, con una docena de diferentes verduras, incluyendo tomates orgánicos y apio que está cultivando para compartir las semillas con los miembros de su grupo.
Una vecina, doña Ernestina, también está en el grupo, y tiene un exuberante jardÃn de unos 10 por 10 metros. Tiene un pequeño jardÃn hidropónico de tubos de PVC llenos de plantas de lechuga, una inversión pagada por la municipalidad local. La AgroecologÃa y la Fe prefiere lo orgánico, y no está muy de acuerdo con los jardines hidropónicos, porque usan fertilizantes minerales. Pero la ONG es suficientemente flexible para tolerar los huertos hidropónicos, que a las mujeres les gustan. El grupo de mujeres es independiente y libre de establecer vÃnculos con más de una institución.
Junto con un pequeño grupo de otros visitantes, pagamos un poquito para un almuerzo que las mujeres nos prepararon. Estaban ansiosas por vender sus verduras. Cuatro cabezas de lechuga costaron 5 Bs., más barato que en el mercado. Las familias comen mucho de sus propios productos y sus hijos parecen limpios, sanos y bien alimentado). Los pequeños huertos de las mujeres son sorprendentemente productivos, a pesar de que tienen que hacer su propio suelo y comprar su agua. Las familias también tienen excedentes de hortalizas para vender.
AgroecologÃa y Fe está planeando una feria de intercambio de semillas, y una vez al mes tienen una feria solidaria, donde las mujeres venden canastas solidarias de verduras que ellas mismas producen.
Las mujeres y sus familias han dejado atrás sus granjas, pero trajeron consigo lo mejor de los valores rurales: el trabajo duro y la creatividad. Esta gente versátil ha tomado su desarrollo personal en sus propias manos, y han decidido que un huerto familiar es uno de los boletos para salir de la pobreza.
Otras historias del blog
Las canastas de solidaridad de AgroecologÃa y Fe se inspiraron de una experiencia en el Ecuador, que (por pura casualidad) he descrito en un blog previo: Donaciones de comida, con estilo
Para una historia sobre la producción hidropónica de hortalizas: Sin tierra, sin agua, no hay problema
Videos que le podrÃan interesar
Para videos sobre las semillas de semillas, y de los derechos populares a las semillas, vea:
Vea la versión en español a continuación
Juan Almanza is an agronomist who works with seventy mothers, some single and some married, in three rural communities around Colomi, Cochabamba. Juan teaches them new ways to grow nutritious food, especially two legume crops: broad beans (introduced from Europe centuries ago) and the native lupin. The program is in its third year.
Last year Juan helped each of the three groups of women to plant a demonstration or learning plot. Juan had two new ideas to showcase: two new varieties of sweet lupins that did not have to be soaked and washed to leach out their toxins, and second, planting the whole plot (a small field) with lupins. Previously farmers planted them in a single row along the borders around a potato field.
The learning plot is an idea that Juan adopted from his earlier work with farmer field schools. The women have enjoyed the meetings and appreciated that the sweet lupins can be used in recipes that would be impossible with bitter varieties. The women have made hamburgers, soups and have boiled the lupine beans fresh, to eat like peas. The women have collected 18 recipes which Juan has written up.
Some husbands have resented the time that the women spend at the meetings, because it distracts them from farm work. Some wives quit attending. Juan realized that to keep the women in the group it was important that they receive tangible benefits which they could show to the rest of the family. So this past planting season Juan gave each woman an arroba and a half (about 18 kilos) of broad bean seed, of a new variety from La Paz, and two or three kilos of lupin seed.
Juan showed each group a video on lupins, filmed partly in Colomi, but mostly in Anzaldo, in another province of Cochabamba, where farmers already grow lupins in small fields, not just around the edge. Juan is a skilled agronomist and perfectly capable of teaching about lupins, but trying new varieties and planting them in a new way requires some extra inspiration. Seeing real farmers on the video, successfully growing lupins, gave the women the encouragement they needed. They all planted the lupins Juan gave them.
Juan and I caught up with some of the lupin farmers at the fair, held twice a week in Colomi, where farmers come to sell their produce and to buy food and clothes. Many of the busy mothers from Juan’s groups are retailers two days a week, and farmers on the other days.
As she tends a stall of grains and other dried foods, Marina explains that before they met Juan, some farmers did grow the lupins in whole fields, but they would plant them in furrows a meter apart. The new varieties are much shorter and have to be planted closer together. The video showed how to do this.
Reina Merino was unpacking her bundles of clothing in her small shop. She said that now the women plant lupins “like potatoes,†that is, in furrows, close together, and the farmers now take the trouble to weed the crop. Weeding was also an innovation. Previously lupins would just be planted and left alone until harvest time.
Unfortunately, the women’s hard work did not pay off. This past year the rains were delayed, and then it rained far too much. Some people harvested half of the lupins they were expecting; others reaped almost nothing. Given the disappointing results, I asked Reina if she would plant lupins again. “Of course we will!!†she said.
Juan is convinced that the videos were important.  He says “The best way to see a new thing is with a video. It opens the heart of the rural researcher.â€
He plans to show the lupin video again to all of his groups. Juan Almanza is a dedicated, respected extension agent who uses video as one of several tools, along with talks, experimental plots and visits to farmers’ fields. He realizes that showing the video a second time will reinforce what these farmers have already learned. Hopefully the weather this year will repay their efforts.
Related blog stories
Innovating in the homeland of lupins
Acknowledgements
Our work in Bolivia is funded by the McKnight Foundation’s CCRP (Collaborative Crop Research Program). Juan Almanza works for the Proinpa Foundation.
VIDEOS PARA UN POCO MÃS DE INSPIRACIÓN
Por Jeff Bentley, 27 de mayo del 2018
Juan Almanza es un agrónomo que trabaja con setenta madres, algunas solteras y otras casadas, en tres comunidades rurales alrededor de Colomi, Cochabamba. El Ing. Juan les enseña nuevas formas de cultivar alimentos nutritivos, especialmente dos leguminosas: habas (introducidas desde Europa hace siglos) y el tarwi (lupino, chocho o altramuz) nativo. El programa está en su tercer año.
El año pasado, el Ing. Juan ayudó a cada uno de los tres grupos de mujeres a sembrar una parcela de aprendizaje. Juan tenÃa dos nuevas ideas para mostrar: dos nuevas variedades de tarwi dulces que no tenÃan que ser remojados y lavados para quitar sus toxinas, y segundo, sembrar toda la parcela con tarwi. Anteriormente, las agricultores los sembraban en una sola fila alrededor del borde de la parcela de papas.
La parcela de aprendizaje es una idea que el ingeniero adoptó de su trabajo anterior con las escuelas de campo para agricultores. Las mujeres han disfrutado de las reuniones y han apreciado que el tarwi dulce se puede usar en recetas que serÃan imposibles con las variedades amargas. Las mujeres han hecho hamburguesas, sopas y han hervido los tarwis frescos para comer como arvejas. Las mujeres han recogido 18 recetas que Juan ha redactado.
Algunos maridos no están de acuerdo con el tiempo que las mujeres pasan en las reuniones, porque les distrae del trabajo agrÃcola. Algunas esposas han dejado de asistir. El Ing. Juan se dio cuenta de que para mantener a las mujeres en el grupo era importante que recibieran beneficios tangibles que pudieran mostrar al resto de la familia. Asà que en esta última campaña, Juan les dio a cada mujer una arroba y media (unos 18 kilos) de semilla de haba, una nueva variedad de La Paz y dos o tres kilos de semilla de tarwi.
Juan mostró a cada grupo un video sobre altramuces, filmado en parte en Colomi, pero principalmente en Anzaldo, en otra provincia de Cochabamba, donde los agricultores ya cultivan tarwi en pequeñas parcelas, no solo alrededor del borde. Juan es un agrónomo hábil y perfectamente capaz de enseñar sobre el tarwi, pero probar nuevas variedades y plantarlas de una nueva manera requiere algo de inspiración adicional. Ver a agricultores reales en el video, cultivando tarwi exitosamente, les dio a las mujeres el aliento que necesitaban. Todas sembraron el tarwi que Juan les dio.
El Ing. Juan y yo conversamos con algunos de los productores de tarwi en la feria, que se realiza dos veces a la semana en Colomi, donde los agricultores vienen a vender sus productos y comprar comida y ropa. Muchas de las madres de los grupos son minoristas dos dÃas a la semana, y agricultoras en los otros dÃas.
Mientras ella cuida un puesto de granos y otras comidas secas, Marina explica que antes de conocer a Juan, algunos agricultores cultivaban el tarwi en parcelas enteras, pero lo sembraban en surcos a un metro de distancia. Las nuevas variedades son mucho más cortas y deben plantarse más cerca. El video mostró cómo hacer esto.
Reina Merino estaba desempacando sus paquetes de ropa en su pequeña tienda. Ella dijo que ahora las mujeres plantan tarwi “como papas”, es decir, en surcos, más cerca, y que ahora se toman la molestia de carpir (desmalezar) la cosecha. La carpida también fue una innovación. Previamente, el tarwi se sembraba y se dejaba hasta el momento de la cosecha.
Infelizmente, el trabajo duro de las mujeres no dio resultado. El año pasado, las lluvias se retrasaron y luego llovió demasiado. Algunas personas cosecharon la mitad del tarwi que estaban esperando; otras no cosechaban casi nada. Dado los decepcionantes resultados, le pregunté a Reina si plantarÃa tarwi de nuevo. “¡ Obvio que este año lo vamos a hacer otra vez!” dijo.
El Ing. Juan está convencido de que los videos fueron importantes. Él dice: “La mejor manera de ver una cosa nueva es el video. Abre el corazón del investigador rural.â€
Él planifica mostrar el video del lupino nuevamente a todos sus grupos. Juan Almanza es un extensionista dedicado y respetado que usa el video como una de varias herramientas, junto con charlas, parcelas de aprendizaje y visitas a campos de agricultores. Se da cuenta de que mostrar el video por segunda vez reforzará lo que estas agricultoras ya han aprendido. Esperemos que el clima de este año acompañe sus esfuerzos.
Historias previas
Innovando en la cuna del tarwi
Agradecimiento
Nuestro trabajo en Bolivia es auspiciado por el CCRP (Programa Colaborativo para la Investigación de los Cultivos) de la Fundación McKnight. Juan Almanza trabaja para la Fundación Proinpa.
Vea la versión en español a continuación
The success of a woman’s group depends in large part on the quality of leadership, as I saw this last week in Morochata, a highland municipality in the Bolivian Andes. My agronomist friend Rhimer Gonzales had organized women’s groups in two neighboring villages. One group was largely inactive, while the one in the village of Piusilla was going strong.
Rhimer phoned Juliana GarcÃa, the president of the women’s group of Piusilla, to arrange a meeting. Rhimer had some group business to discuss, and he was going to help me ask some follow up questions about videos. The previous year, the women had received DVDs with seven videos on soil conservation and I wanted to learn what the women had done with the information. Doña Juliana was not at home, and the women in her group were busy, but she said that if we came back at 8:30 that evening she would have at least some of the women at her house.
By 8 o’clock in the evening it was dark and raining hard. At 3350 meters above sea level it gets cold when it rains, and it’s miserable to get wet. Rhimer and I were sure that no one would come to the meeting, but still we wanted to try.
We were surprised when we got to doña Juliana’s house to see about half of the women’s group there. Doña Juliana had taken the time (and spent money) to ring the women up, and had then built a warm fire to welcome them. They soon invited me to ask my questions. The videos included one that Agro-Insight made last year on lupins, edible Andean legumes that improve the soil.
The women said that they had seen two videos with Rhimer at one of their meetings. Afterwards, the women arranged to watch the videos again, by themselves, because they are looking for ways to improve their income, for example by growing lupins and broad beans. They also want to consolidate their position as a women’s group within the sindicato, the local organization that represents and leads the community, but which is made up mainly of men.
Besides the lupin video, they had watched one from Vietnam about making live barriers on steep hillsides to conserve the soil. They recalled, accurately, that the video showed how to measure rows to plant the grass, which had to be transplanted in small clumps or cuttings.
When we asked if they had tried any of the ideas from the video, doña Juliana said that she had learned how to select her seed. One of the key ideas from the lupin video is to remove the small and unhealthy grains, and only plant the best ones for a better harvest. Doña Juliana was impressed by the little hand screen she had seen in the video, to sort the grains by size, but she didn’t have a screen. Instead, she just sorted the seed by hand, a practice which is also shown in the video. It is important to give people different options.
She has planted the seed and now the crop is flowering. Doña Juliana is impressed that by selecting her lupin seed, the plants are bigger and healthier than in previous years.
Rhimer and I asked how many of the other women in the group had selected seed too. One of them decided it was time for some comic relief. She said “My husband just grabbed some of the lupine grains in the bag and scattered them, and they are doing just fine.â€
All of the women laughed, including doña Juliana, but then she reminded them: “You have all seen how to select seed and you know how to do it. So you should all try it.â€
Leadership matters. In time, these women will notice the difference in yield between selected and unselected seed. It usually takes a while for a whole community to adopt an innovation. A useful step is to have one of the leaders adopt and share her experience.
Many of the women are shy, but not doña Juliana. As we are leaving she gave me a firm handshake and said: “Next time come in the daytime, and we’ll all have boiled potatoes!†I have little doubt that when doña Juliana harvests her lupins she will share her experience with the group. Triggering innovation is like growing a crop: it requires someone to plant the seed. The videos do exactly that: give farmers ideas to try out new things. And by leaving DVDs in communities you give people the chance to learn at their convenience.
Watch videos
Growing lupin without disease is available in English, French, Spanish, Ayamara and Quechua.
Grass strips against soil erosion is available in 10 languages, including Spanish, Ayamara and Quechua
More training videos can be viewed and downloaded from www.accessagriculture.org
Related blog story
Acknowledgements
Our work in Bolivia is funded by the McKnight Foundation’s CCRP (Collaborative Crop Research Program). Rhimer Gonzales works for the Proinpa Foundation, where he helps to implement the Biocultura Project, which is funded by SDC (Swiss Cooperation).
LAS MUJERES UNIDAS DE MOROCHATA
Por Jeff Bentley, 6 de mayo del 2018
El éxito de un grupo de mujeres depende en gran medida de la calidad del liderazgo, como lo vi la semana pasada en Morochata, un municipio en los altos Andes bolivianos. Mi amigo, el ingeniero agrónomo Rhimer Gonzales, habÃa organizado grupos de mujeres en dos comunidades vecinos. Un grupo estaba en gran parte inactivo, mientras que el de la comunidad de Piusilla estaba fuerte.
Rhimer llamó a Juliana GarcÃa, la presidenta del grupo de mujeres de Piusilla, para concertar una reunión. Rhimer tenÃa algunos asuntos del grupo para discutir, y me iba a ayudar a hacer algunas preguntas de seguimiento sobre los videos. El año anterior, las mujeres habÃan recibido DVDs con siete videos sobre la conservación del suelo y yo querÃa saber cómo habÃan respondido ellas a la información. Doña Juliana no estaba en casa, y las mujeres de su grupo estaban ocupadas, pero dijo que si volvÃamos a las 8:30 esa noche ella tendrÃa al menos algunas de las mujeres en su casa.
A las 8 de la noche estaba oscuro y llovÃa fuerte. A los 3350 metros sobre el nivel del mar hace frÃo cuando llueve, y es miserable mojarse. Rhimer y yo estábamos seguros de que nadie vendrÃa a la reunión, pero aun asà querÃamos intentarlo.
Nos sorprendimos cuando llegamos a la casa de doña Juliana para ver reunido la mitad del grupo de mujeres. Doña Juliana se habÃa tomado el tiempo (y gastado dinero) para llamar a las mujeres, y luego habÃa encendido un fuego caliente para darles la bienvenida. Pronto me invitaron a hacer mis preguntas. Los videos incluyen uno que Agro-Insight hizo el año pasado sobre el tarwi (lupino, chocho, o altramuz), una leguminosa andina comestible que mejora el suelo.
Las mujeres contaron que habÃan visto dos videos con Rhimer en una de sus reuniones. Luego, las mujeres se organizaron para ver los videos de nuevo, por su cuenta, porque ellas buscan opciones para mejorar sus ingresos, por ejemplo produciendo tarwi y habas. Además quieren consolidar su posición como grupo de mujeres dentro del sindicato, la organización popular que representa y lidera a la comunidad, que es conformado principalmente por hombres.
Además del video de lupinos, habÃan visto uno de Vietnam sobre el hacer barreras vivas en laderas para conservar el suelo. Recordaron, con precisión, que el video mostraba cómo medir las filas para plantar el pasto, que se tenÃa que trasplantar en matoncitos.
Cuando les preguntamos si habÃan probado algunas de las ideas del video, doña Juliana dijo que habÃa aprendido a seleccionar su semilla. Una de las ideas clave del video de lupinos es eliminar los granos pequeños y enfermos, y solo sembrar los mejores para una mejor cosecha. Doña Juliana quedó impresionada por la pequeña zaranda de mano que habÃa visto en el video, para separar los granos por tamaño, pero ella no tenÃa zaranda. En cambio, ella simplemente seleccionó la semilla a mano, una práctica que también se muestra en el video. Es importante dar varias opciones a la gente.
Ella ha plantado la semilla y ahora la cosecha está floreciendo. Doña Juliana está impresionada de que al seleccionar su semilla de lupino, las plantas son más grandes y más saludables que en años anteriores.
Rhimer y yo preguntamos cuántas de las otras mujeres en el grupo también habÃan seleccionado semillas. Una de ellas decidió que era hora para un poco de alivio cómico. Ella dijo: “Mi marido solamente agarró algunos granos de lupino del bulto y los lanzó, y están creciendo bien.”
Todas las mujeres se rieron, incluida doña Juliana, pero luego les recordó: “Todas han visto cómo seleccionar semillas y saben cómo hacerlo”. Entonces todos deberÃan intentarlo.”
El liderazgo sà importa. Con el tiempo, estas mujeres se fijarán en la diferencia en el rendimiento entre las semillas seleccionadas y las otras. Por lo general, toma tiempo para que toda una comunidad adopte una innovación. Un paso útil es lograr que una de las lÃderes adopte y comparta su experiencia.
Muchas de las mujeres son tÃmidas, pero no doña Juliana. Cuando partimos, me dio un firme apretón de manos y dijo: “¡La próxima vez venga de dÃa, y todos comeremos papas cocidas!” me queda poca duda de que cuando doña Juliana coseche sus lupinos, compartirá su experiencia con el grupo. Desencadenar la innovación es como cultivar un cultivo: requiere que alguien siembre la semilla. Los videos hacen exactamente eso: dan ideas a las agricultoras para que pruben cosas nuevas. Y al dejar los DVD en las comunidades, la gente tiene la oportunidad de aprender a su conveniencia.
Ver los videos
Producir tarwi sin enfermedad está disponible en español, inglés, francés, ayamara y quechua.
Barreras vivas contra la erosión del suelo está disponible en 10 idiomas, incluso español, ayamara y quechua.
Se puede ver y bajar más videos informativos de www.accessagriculture.org
Una historia previa
Agradecimientos
Nuestro trabajo en Bolivia es auspiciado por el CCRP (Programa Colaborativo para la Investigación de los Cultivos) de la Fundación McKnight. Rhimer Gonzales trabaja para la Fundación Proinpa, donde él ayuda a implementar el Proyecto Biocultura, el cual es financiado por COSUDE (Cooperación Suiza).
New ideas spark the imagination of smallholders, whether they have experience with the topic or not. We saw this last week in Nanegaon, a village just outside of the booming city of Pune, India, where farmers reviewed four fact sheets written by our 12 adult students.
A fact sheet is only one page, so it has to narrow in on a specific topic. The first fact sheet suggested cleaning maggots from wounds on cattle with turpentine, a common disinfectant distilled from pine resin. One man, Hanumant Pawale, read the fact sheet quickly, pronouncing the text clearly in a booming voice. When he finished, several farmers began to speak, adding ideas they wanted to include in the fact sheet. The first woman said that here they treat the cows’ wounds with kerosene, which is cheaper than turpentine, and is available at shops in the village. Her neighbors mentioned other products to treat cattle.
We had wondered how farmers removed maggots. One of the farmers went to get a pair of tweezers to show us the tool that he used for plucking maggots from a wounded cow. Tweezers may be too sharp for such a delicate operation, but every household has a pair of tweezers, and they work if you are careful not to poke the cow’s flesh.
The farmers shared another important insight with us: it is best to avoid letting maggots grow in wounds in the first place. The villagers keep their cattle healthy by looking for wounds. Cows lick their wounds, the villagers explain, and if people see a cow licking her wound, they know that she needs some care.
The authors of the fact sheets got excited about improving their fact sheet by taking the farmers’ ideas on board.
It was a great meeting, but there was one little problem. After the first woman spoke, only men took the floor. Later I mentioned this to Pooja, one of our participants.
“The women won’t speak if the men are there,†she says matter-of-factly.
After meeting with the dairy farmers I went with two young men, Ajinkya and Pradeepta, who were writing a fact sheet on mulch: a simple layer of straw or leaves put on the soil surface to keep in moisture. We met a farmer, Mukta Naranyan Sathe, who was just setting down a pile of small, delicate legumes onto a tarp, for threshing.
Mukta-ji had never heard of mulch, but she was interested. After reading the fact sheet, she understood that mulch helps to conserve water. But, she told us that she did not really need to conserve water, because Nanegaon has abundant irrigation, provided by seven or eight bore-hole wells.
Even so, the fact sheet still inspired her to think creatively. She imagined that a large plant could be mulched with whole straw, but for a fragile herb, like fenugreek, the straw would have to be cut into small pieces.
We were soon joined by Mukta’s great nephew, Ganesh Dhide and a friend, Shubhan Pawale. They read the fact sheet and then all of them began to imagine ways of making mulch. They said that instead of burning the leaves off of sugarcane (a common practice which makes the cane easier to harvest), they could use them as a mulch.
They added that they now have a clear idea of mulching and that if one person tries it, and it works, the others in the village will surely adopt the new ideas as well.
The villagers could tell us practical ways to cure wounded cows but didn’t know about mulching until the fact sheet caught their imagination. Even so, they thought of two new ways to make mulch not mentioned in the fact sheet: cutting straw for fenugreek, and using sugarcane leaves. Farmers are inherently creative, and relish new ideas. We do not know if the farmers will adopt any of the ideas in the fact sheets, but before trying a technology one must first imagine doing something new. Our readers had already taken that step.
Other blog stories on writing fact sheets
Acknowledgements
The first photo is by Mohan Dhuldhar. The second one is by Ajinkya Upasani.
